Gym life: Part II: nutrition ... .... ...................... For those of you who read my previous article about the gym and its impact on my life and were thinking “wow, I wish there was an article about nutrition too”, well, here it is! Losing weight and gaining muscle may seem tough and requires strict discipline and focus to maintain, but I’m going to make it easy for you and give you the bare bone necessities to achieve that summer body (hopefully on time).
Balanced eating
Before getting into specifics, I want to show you what scientists consider healthy eating: a healthy diet contains all food groups from the food triangle. Now you can stop cringing as you realise that you are nowhere close to having a healthy diet, because we don’t live in a perfect world and sometimes it’s just not possible. However I will be using a few select groups for this article that you really should include for either gaining muscle or cutting fat.
The gains
Gaining muscle takes time and of course is only possible through regular exercise and a complimentary diet. The big shock is, you can really eat whatever you want, because it’s all about calories and protein: pasta, rice, chicken, fish and pizza (albeit unhealthy) are good for gains. Calories are the base of what food becomes, energy that your body uses. In order to gain muscle you need to ensure you have a caloric surplus, which means that you eat enough food to have more calories than your body needs. A good way to find out your maintenance amount (the amount of calories for you to stay the same size), is to go online and use a calorie maintenance calculator. The next step is to make sure you eat
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more than that to gain muscle. Combining this with regular exercise causes the muscles to grow as they use more calories. Stop working out, and you will be gaining fat – simple. You will always gain a little fat while bulking, so don’t worry if you’re not as defined as you would want, the next part of this article helps with that.
The cut
Cutting is all about ensuring you have a caloric deficit, so making sure you eat less calories than you need to maintain your current size. It’s a little harder to lose fat than it is to gain muscle, so expect some resistance during your cut, but perseverance is key. There are a number of tricks one can use when cutting down: one in particular that I use is ‘intermittent fasting’, where you don’t eat until after a certain time of the day, so in essence the total amount of calories
By Reyhaan King
you can consume is less than usual. If you combine this method with a strict no carbs after 6 pm diet, you should be able to manage your calories efficiently. The most important thing you can do is step up your cardio game. Personally, I hate running, but I have to give credit where it’s due; it does help with ensuring you burn those calories and melt that fat. Check out the healthy student food article for inspiration on what you can cook to help you on your journey to peak physical fitness. The trick to fitness is commitment and discipline, be sure to go about your workout and meal plan rationally and set goals that are achievable for you. Not everyone’s body behaves in the same way, but everyone is able to make gains. There are no excuses.